Sunday, May 17, 2009

Some say we should outlaw unfunded or partially funded mandates, with the naive hope that the burden of funding the implementation would make the federal gov't more responsive to the taxpayers. I hope it is clear now that there is bipartisan support in Washington for irresponsible borrowing and little aversion to taxation.

However, when it comes to taxation: They should never take this much of our money without getting better agreement from the people before doing it. The magnitude of the sums they will shortly require of us, call for significant deliberation and debate.

But Congress repeatedly ignores us. They specialize in the cramdown. They've very nearly lost sight of all principle.

There is no antidote to this other than to take back the power due to us at the state and local level. Let us decide. Let the federal government back away. We do not like having our money taken from us with the promise that somehow it'll all be best for everybody sometime down the road. Depriving the public of open deliberations leaves us with only vague promises that Father Law knows best. Where is our skepticism?

They continue to promise us a retirement and medical care when we get old, but all the actuaries tell us that these retirement and medicare funds are unfunded. It is not prudent to depend upon such an insecure system. And yet we do.

Those who have so carelessly abandoned the sound financial future of this country and its currency are not to be trusted with bigger responsibility. And yet they are intent on seizing control of the medical care community, an area most of think requires a very high degree of local control. How can the left tolerate such interference given that had nationwide laws prevailed prior to Roe v Wade they would have prohibited abortion at a time when states like New York had legalized it?

Are we to accept federal control over where your doctor can cut and how deeply? We need to let some states disagree with each other and tolerate the diversity. This is how the gay marriage issue is being decided today. The states don't all agree. That's federalism.

Nationalized health care is the most dramatic grab of Federal power in nearly 100 years.

Is it too much to ask that our Congressmen read and understand, and logically argue about the laws they pass before they pass them? The Obama "stimulus" package was no more debated, much less read, up front than was the Patriot Act. Both required careful consideration before passing. We were cheated of that debate. And even if 100% of all these bills were to survive intact after significant debate, we would still be richer for having hashed it out in public.